Her Father's Girl
by StrawberryPajamas
Summary: Everybody knows that House is a hateful, evil drug addict, but who knew the only reason he clings to life is being the single dad to his four-year-old daughter, Alonna? She is the reason he functions. newly reinstated oneshot Set around season 1


House fingered the one and final white pill of the bottle. He always savored his last Vicodin, even when he had about three hundred bottles stashed in other places around the house and hospital. It was stupid, he knew, but he coulnd't help it. It was like saying his final goodbyes to an old friend. He felt the rounded edges of the capsule; feeling the chalky exterior as he debated whether or not he should take it. On the upside, it would relieve his leg pain and give him the buzz he oh so craved. On the downside...

He didn't really want to think about that.

House winced slightly as his leg gave a particularly nasty throb. He cluthed it, rubbing it slightly as he tilted his head back, without thinking, and tossed the pill in his mouth. He swallowed, his eyes still squeezed shut, and sighed.

The pain would be gone soon, he knew.

He opened his eyes and glanced around at his apartment. To any other person it would look like a normal doctor's bachelor pad: small, cozy, and overcrowded with medical books. A television and sterio were in the corners along with the lamp and coffee table. There was no sign at all that another person lived in the apartment other than one small, dismissable detail.

Hoiuse stood up and limped across the room, toward the coffee table. On it splayed an assortment of medical files and charts, and wedged under a file for a 25- year old female with hemocromotosis, was a sheet of paper with the crayon scratchings of a four year old girl.

He picked it up, trying to decipher what the picture showed:

It was of two stick people, one considerably taller than the other. The shorter on had long, sticklike brown hair and a pink blob on top of her head, indicating a bow. She was holding the hand of the taller one, who had nothing significant about him other than he was carrying a staff that could rival Moses'. In the background there was a bunch of brown and blue squiggles, obviously referring to the basic color scheme the house excuded. Both were wearing large, crooked smiles; happy together.

House quickly realized he himself was smiling slightly at the picture, and he immediately slid it off his face. Clutching the paper in his hand, he limped toward the wastepaper basket, knowing the picture only took up space. Coloring was for school and friend's houses, _not _for his apartment. The garbage can was right in front of him, and he was going to toss it, when something caught his eye. He flipped it over, revealing something sloppily written on the back:

DADDY AND ME, BY ALONNA

The words were barely legible, and filled the up the entire back of the sheet, but were there. This time, House allowed a smile to spread across his face, because this was the longest phrase his daughter had ever written.

House turned and limped away from the wastepaper basket, and towards the fridge. Any other parent would have stuck it to the side of the fridge, showing off their child's work to the world. But, House being House of course, merely placed it on top. Alonna knew that meant he was proud of her.

The Vicodin was doing it's job, because House felt sleepy and almost pain-free all of a sudden. He ignored the drowsiness as he limped towards the piano, thinking of playing a song before his daughter got up for school.

Alonna was Stacy'sand House's daughter. They had broken up the year before and for many months both were brokenhearted and sad. They ran into each other at a coffeeshop in another part of Jersey the year later, one thing led to another, and the next thing they knew she was pregnant with Alonna. Stacy wanted to abort, because she mentioned she was seeing someone: Mark or something like that. But House wouldn't let her. To any other patient, he would make them terminate the pregnancy: it was the logical thing to do.

But now it was personal. The equation had changed.

Stacy very grudgingly agreed to keep the baby. She knew she had to tell Mark, which she finally did when she was around four months pregnant. He was obviously furious; they fought, he screamed, she cried. Finally, he agreed that having this baby was best for her. He said he wanted to work things out between him and Stacy, but if, and only if, they would not raise the baby. He refused, point-blank, to raise anything that was related, directly or indirectly, to House. Stacy was upset, but agreed to give the rights of her child to House.

Three years later: here they were.

House started fingering his old, overused piano books, debating which one he was going to play from. Nothing appealed to him, and he tossed them aside, one by one.

He suddenly remembered his song. The song he wrote in junior high. That was a good one; but he never got the chance to name it though.

Oh well, he thought. He began to play.

It still amazed him that, even after all these years, things like well-practiced songs or phrases are still permanently engrained in his mind. Doctors still didn't know exactly what part of the brain controlled long-term memories, and that obviously intrigued him. He kept playing, marveling at how such a well-rehearsed song didn't even sound like music anymore: just a series of notes, or a job, or an assembly line. He could even play it in his sleep, and not miss a note.

Foor patters can be heard from the back of the small apartment, but House didn't notice. He didn't notice until a small, little girl wearing a nightgown appeared at the hall doorway.

She didn't say anything; just listened, silent as a mouse. Her thumb was stuck in between her lips, clamped loosely in her teeth. A tiny blanket was tucked under her ear by her left hand. Her normally straight brown hair was now disheveled by sleep, and her amazingly blue eyes were droopy. She listened to her father play with tired, yet rapt, attention.

He played, and played till the song was over. When he stopped, he heard a soft "Daddy?" from the corner.

House turned in his seat to see the little girl framed in the hallway opening. He felt his heart warm ever so slightly when he saw his little girl.

"Morning 'Lonna," he muttered, a smile curling on his face. Alonna smiled at his nickname for her.

She walked over to her father, and slid on the piano bench right next to him. She quietly set her blankie on her lap, and began plunking on the piano keys. Unlike most girls her age, she knew a couple songs already, and pretty well. She was just like her father in so many ways.

House just watched his daughter play, noticing how fragile she looked. She was a tiny little speck of light in his dull, dark, depressing life of his. He knew she was the reason he was trying to cut back on the Vicodin, and was trying to be able to cooperate more with people at work.

He watched her play for a few more moments, smirking slightly.

"C'mon," House rubbed the back of her hair, rumpling the already messy tresses. Alonna looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. They were the same shade of blue as his. "We gotta go to school now."

"Kay," she responded simply. She was quiet; didn't talk unless she absolutely had to. She had always been like that, even when she first started talking. She slid off the bench and began making her way back to her room.

"Hey," House suddenly said after her. She stopped and turned around.

He got up and limped, caneless, across the room, toward his daughter and knelt down.

"What?" she asked, her thumb back in between her teeth.

House just looked at her for a second. "You wanna go to the hospital with Daddy today? After school?"

Alonna's eyes seemed to bug out with absolute delight. She had always wanted to visit the hospital with her dad; she never had before. She jumped onto her father and squeezed him with all her might, hugging until House was sure his lung would collapse.

He tried to hide a smile as he lightly hugged her back.

"Okay?" House looked down at her when she let go.

"Yeah!" Alonna said loudly, a smile lighting her adorable little face. House's heart warmed. Just a little.

"All right. I'll pick you up at around lunchtime." She nodded obediantly and turned around, flying down the hallway to her bedroom.

The truth was, House was holding off taking his daughter to the hospital for a while. He wasn't sure how his coworkers would react, or if Cuddy or someone would call Social Services, thinking he was feeding her Vicodin or something. He loved his daughter, and he would make sure everyone in the hospital would realize this.

As he listened to the scurries of the four year old girl from the other room, he knew they were ready. It wouldn't be that bad.

***

They was probably the oddest sight this hospital had ever seen.

An old, sarcastic Vicodin-addicted doctor with a limp was walking side-by-side down the hallway with a tiny, brown-haired little girl with a pink Dora the Explorer backpack and a purple jumper on. She just looked pleasantly curious as she took in all the rooms and beds and beeping machines, and he looked like his normal, angry self-loathing self. She quickly followed her father through the clear, glass door that led to a large room with a table and three people.

"Differential diagnosis!" House shouted almost immediately when he walked in the room. He scooped up a chart lying on the table, and Alonna quickly and quietly took a seat in one of the empty chairs, just a silent observer. She slipped off her backpack and plunked it on her lap, her legs swinging slightly during the process.

"Five-year old girl with unexplained heart failure." Forman said apprehensively, looking down and the little girl sitting in front of him. "Is... this her?"

House pretended to look shocked, "What!? How could you mistake my four-year-old daughter for a dying five-year-old _stranger_?" He exaggeratedly rolled his eyes for Alonna, who giggled. "Men." He turned around, picked up a dry-erase marker, and started writing.

The three people in lab coats froze.

"Your... daughter?" Cameron asked hesitantly. Her brown eyes were wide with shock.

House stopped writing for a second before turning slowly to face them all, "Yeah," he motioned to the little girl. "Everyone, this is my daughter Alonna. After school care was cancelled today, so she's here with me. 'Lonna, this is everybody." He waved his marker around the whole room, then turned around, getting back to work.

Chase, Cameron, and Forman only stared at each other or Alonna with wide, surprised looks. They couldn't imagine a man like House having a daughter. But apparently he did: and here she was.

House waited a few seconds before speaking into the silence, "Okay, you chatterboxes. Let's all quiet down for a minute so we can work on this case that God has oh so graciously bestowed upon us..."

"So... differential diagnosis!"

Alonna watched her father and his employees at work, and she felt incredibly content. She loved her father, imperfect as he was. He was still hers, and what he did made him all the more interesting. She didn't know what she would do without him: she didn't think she would function.

When her dad turned around to look at them all again, Alonna smiled at him. And he smiled back.

He would never admit this to anybody, but his daughter was the reason he didn't OD on his Vicodin every day. She was the reason he walked through those glass front doors every morning. She was the reason he was willing to wake up every morning to excrutiating leg pain.

She was the reason he didn't just give up on everything.

Uncomfortable though it was, she was the reason he functioned.


End file.
